1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display panel and, in particular, to a method for driving a display panel including matrix wiring and a display apparatus including the display panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some display panels include a plurality of display elements arranged in a matrix and connected to a matrix wiring including a plurality of row wirings and column wirings. In display apparatuses using such a display panel, a scanning signal is sequentially input to row wirings. At the same time, modulation signals corresponding to an image to be displayed are synchronously input to column wirings. By sequentially driving a plurality of display elements on a row-by-row basis in this manner, the image is displayed. Accordingly, the voltage applied to the display element and/or the electrical current flowing in the display element is controlled by the scanning signal and the modulation signal.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-301229 describes a technique to increase the dark-room contrast by changing the voltage level of a scanning selection signal and decreasing the luminance of the black level in response to an external instruction.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-313626 describes a display apparatus including an illuminance measuring unit, a diffuse reflection luminance computing unit that computes the diffuse reflection luminance of a display surface using a measurement value output from the illuminance measuring unit, an emission luminance computing unit that computes the emission luminance on the basis of a signal output from the diffusion reflection luminance computing unit, and a light control unit that controls the emission luminance of the display surface on the basis of a signal output from the emission luminance computing unit.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-229511 describes a technique to control the power for driving an organic EL element of an organic EL panel in accordance with the illuminance of light coming from the outside.
In recent years, power consumption of a display apparatus is required to be reduced from the standpoint of environmental protection and cost reduction. In contrast, users require high-quality display apparatuses. It is difficult for existing technology to satisfy these two requirements at the same time. Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for driving a display panel and a display apparatus including the display panel to reduce power consumption without degrading the display quality that the user experiences.